Washington State University presses billion-dollar drive

For years, Washington State University Vancouver boosters have watched new classroom buildings rise on the Salmon Creek campus.

Now it’s time for Cougars and their Southwest Washington advocates to raise more cold, hard cash.

o Target: $1 billion by 2015.

o Raised to date: $532.2 million, including new $26 million Paul G. Allen gift.

o Purpose: $180 million directly to student scholarships and fellowships, another $120 million for student support; almost $250 million to attract and retain faculty members; the remainder for research initiatives, academic and outreach efforts, facility construction and renovation.

o For more information: WSU global health; WSU Foundation.

Leaders of the statewide WSU system on Thursday launched the “public” portion of a decade-long, $1 billion capital campaign with midday celebrations at all branch campuses and a special webcast from Seattle.

Initiated in 2006, the fundraising drive has now reached the halfway mark during its “quiet” phase, said WSU President Elson S. Floyd.

More than 130,000 donors, among them one-third of all alumni and 5,000 current students, have contributed, Floyd said. The vast majority of gifts have been $1,500 or less.

Now comes time for a bold, public push to reach $1 billion by 2015, the school’s 125th year.

The Campaign for Washington State motto: “Because the world needs big ideas.”

“A great university must have an international and global focus,” Floyd told a group assembled at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle. As a land-grant school with research focused on pressing agriculture, medical and alternative energy issues, WSU must stake its place among world leaders, he said.

That led to Thursday’s big news: A $26 million gift from Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder and owner of the NBA Trail Blazers and NFL Seahawks.

Allen’s gift is the largest in WSU history. It goes in part toward completion of a $35 million, 62,000-square-foot research building for the School for Global Animal Health in Pullman.

With its reach mostly into Africa, the new school’s focus is on infections transmitted from animals to humans. Those account for more than 70 percent of human infectious diseases, and are especially hard on poor and developing nations.

WSU’s work centers on detection of pathogens, control of disease transmission and vaccine development, all part of the university’s broader mission to find sustainability, environmental and energy solutions, Floyd noted.

That global reach attracted an earlier $25 million donation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, partly to fund a building on the Pullman campus due for completion in 2012.

With the new gift, the Paul G. Allen name goes not only on the building, but the entire School of Animal Health.

The gift is a personal one from Allen, who attended WSU from 1971-74, rather than from his philanthropic foundation or his Vulcan Inc. business enterprise.

“I am very thrilled. I’ve been thinking for years I’ve been wanting to do something special with Washington State,” said a hale-looking Allen at the Seattle reception, appearing to be on the mend from his most recent health trouble.

At Salmon Creek, key leaders and community supporters shared in the day’s events.

A representative of the nearby Sleep Country Amphitheater presented a $25,000 check — a first step toward a full-tuition WSUV student scholarship it will sponsor.

So far, local donors have raised nearly $9 million toward a $20 million target, said Jennifer Crooks, WSUV development and alumni relations director.

That would be 2 percent of the greater $1 billion WSU goal.

It’s an ambitious campaign, given brutal economic times.

But those same challenges, which continue to jeopardize the state’s public investment as Washington battles record budget deficits, only underscore the need, said Mike Worthy, Clark County member on the WSU Board of Regents.

“It was decided that we simply can’t sit back and be OK with the mediocrity that would come with a declining budget from the state,” Worthy told the WSUV gathering.

Howard Buck: 360-735-4515 or howard.buck@columbian.com.